China's children are its secret weapon in the global AI arms race

Late on the night of October 4, 1957, Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev was at a reception at the Mariinsky Palace, in Kiev, Ukraine, when an aide called him to the telephone. The Soviet leader was gone a few minutes. When he reappeared at the reception, his son Sergei later recalled, Khrushchev's face shone with triumph. "I can tell you some very pleasant and important news," he told the assembled bureaucrats. "A little while ago, an artificial satellite of the Earth was launched."